


Finding Home When Everything's in Ashes

by LaughingCrow



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: But Mostly fluffy, But the twins don't know, Eva Lives AU, Eva reconnects with her lost boys, Family Feels, Gen, Nero meets his grandma, Witch Eva (Devil May Cry), because Nero has a potty mouth, bit of the old angst, the rating is for language later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingCrow/pseuds/LaughingCrow
Summary: After the twins flee their burning home, emergency teams pull a body from the wreckage. Battered and burned but desperately clinging on to life, Eva lives.
Relationships: Dante & Eva & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Dante & Eva (Devil May Cry), Dante & Nero (Devil May Cry), Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Eva & Nero (Devil May Cry), Eva & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Kyrie/Nero/Nico (Devil May Cry), Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 104





	1. Phoenix's Ash

The sounds of the world great her ears slowly. The hum of the flights, the chatter of the people, and the steady rhythmic beat of a heart monitor. The sun’s warmth graces her hands atop the rough sheets, there is a pinch in her forearms from slender needles, a sturdy pressure weighs on her eyes.

She cannot see.

She pushes with her arms to roll herself onto her back, but they slide out and loses the needed leverage. The monitor chimes at her side and she hears a set of footsteps rapidly approaching.

“Hello Mrs. Drago, my name is Dr. Abrami. How are you feeling?”

“My boys, where are my boys?” Her voice a raspy whisper that scrapes at her throat.

“I’m afraid I don’t know about that Mrs. Drago; you’ll have to ask the officers when they arrive. In the meantime, let’s focus on you.” The doctor has a kindly voice but she can’t follow his request fully, she never found Vergil she has to know- “You’ve been through quite an ordeal ma’am, fortunately the rescue team were able to get you to us quickly, we’ve had you on antibiotics the past few days and there’s been no sign of infection which is good. You’ve probably noticed-”

“My eyes, what’s on my eyes?”

“Just gauze at the moment Mrs. Dra-”

“Eva.”

“Just gauze at the moment Eva, your eyes didn’t take too much damage, but they’ll be sensitive for now. One of the nurses will be by later to try re-introducing you to some low light but don’t be worried if you can’t handle much just yet.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know how much you remember from the incident Eva, but you were exposed to a lot of fire, received several large lacerations to your back, and some serious head trauma from a fall.”

“I remember.”

“That’s good to know. At the moment you’ve got a lot of burns all over, primarily on your legs. You had some bleeding in the brain, but we got that under control, though do let us know if you feel anything off at all. The lacerations on your back were the most sever injury. Luckily, they didn’t reach the spine, but you’ll likely be experiencing some mobility issues for some time after its healed. You inhaled a lot of smoke so once we have the gauze off your eyes, we’ll get you a pen and paper so you can rest your throat.”

“The officers, where-”

“I’ll be letting one in as I leave, I imagine they’ll have some questions for you but try not to stress your throat too much.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, we’ll need to discuss your treatment going forward but that can wait unti-”

“Send them in.”

“Eva -”

“Send. Them. In.”

“Alright, I or one of the nurses will be back later.”

She hears his feet pad softly away. There’s the clicking of a door handle and a new, sharper, set of footsteps approach her bedside.

“Mrs. Drago, my name is Alberto Laterza, I’m with the Redgrave police. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about the attack on your home.” He sounds older than the doctor, a rasp to his voice from years of cigarettes leaching nicotine into his body.

She waits for him to continue. His feet shuffle on the floor and she realises he’s waiting for her response.

“Speak.” She whispers harshly, reminding him what he should already have been cautioned about.

“Right, do you remember much from the attack Mrs. Drago?”

“Remember fire, being hit, falling. My boys? Where’s?”

“We didn’t see anyone else there Mrs. Drago, were your sons in the house with you when the fire started?”

“Dante, I heard the-” Can’t acknowledge the demons to a human, they won’t believe her. “Hid him, closet, second floor.”

“We didn’t find anybody on the second floor Mrs. Drago.”

“He got out? Good.”

He pauses oddly before he carries on his questioning. “Your other son, Vergil, where was he?”

“Outside, fought with Dante. Ran, playground. Find?”

“We didn’t find Vergil either.” He hesitates with his words, even with the painkillers looping around her system she knows there’s more that he isn’t saying.

“What you find?”

“That’s, well-”

“What?” She snaps, and tastes the tang of blood on the base of her tongue.

“There was blood, a lot of it. It’s more than we’d expect-” He cuts himself off this time. “Can you think of any reason why the people who attacked your home would take your sons’ bodies Mrs. Drago?”

No. Nononononono. No not that, anything but that. Not back to Mundus.

“No. No no no no no no no no, NO, they can’t.” The pulse in her ears almost drowns out the urgent tones of the monitor. “He can’t have them.” She’s pushing herself up again. It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts. “My boys.”

The door crashes open. Harsh voices echo incomprehensibly. Firm hands try to guide her shoulders back down. She lashes out at the cost of her balance and plummet into the mattress. Air lost to her lungs; she scrabbles to breath. Harsh gasps choke in the air and it burns her throat.

“No no no no nononononono my boys. He can’t have them. He can’t have them.”

“Who can’t-”

“That’s enough officer!”

“We need to know who-” Their voices are fading out now.

“Nonononononononono”

“My patient needs to recover.”

The world

falls

away.  
  


* * *

She stands in the shattered doorway of her ashen home, well no – she can’t stand just yet. The flames have stripped her legs of their ability to hold her, though the therapists at the hospital are optimistic they’ll recover in time.

* * *

She sits in the shattered doorway of her ashen home. The smooth and clean metal of her wheelchair feels perverse in the wreckage of her life.

They don’t find the twins in the end. No bodies living or dead. Only great pools of blood soaking into the lawn. She doesn’t tell the police everything. It’s going to be hard enough leaving Redgrave alone, she doesn’t want to risk getting put in an asylum, being treated for a condition she doesn’t have.

What she does tell them is enough for them to place her in a protective program. New name, new city, ‘new life’. Just like she’d told Dante to do, only with more bureaucrats involved.

She’s sure her boys survived. Fully awake she can feel the absence of Rebellion and Yamato’s humming in the back of her mind. No longer tied to her until Dante and Vergil came of age, they’ve been passed on. She can only hope that they will protect her children where she could not.

The nurse wheels her away when she asks. There's nothing left for her here other than the memories, and she can carry those with her unassisted.


	2. Spinning the Web

Montague city is a strange place for Eva. The streets lay flat on a grid, a stark absence of weird twists and dead-end streets, only broad avenues, and stubby alleyways. There’s a sheen to the buildings too, even the old bastions were slowly losing their brickwork to modern window walls packed with the brightest goods and grinning posters. It’s not a bad sort of different, the order of the city certainly discourages the fey from encroaching into winding streets that no longer exit to the roads they were built for. But she feels a cold shard in her heart every time she passes a bakery that conjures the memory of Dante’s voice begging her for glistening strawberry tarts, or when she finds the three-story bookstore and instinctively begins calculating how long it would take to find Vergil if she let him run loose in it.

There is of course also the peculiar sensation of navigating the world with almost 3 feet less height than she is used to, but that’s all but buried in the deluge of her new life. She attends her physical therapy diligently and lets nurses cover her in ointment and bandages, takes her pills like clockwork. And when the Polizia di Stato believe she is settled enough to not need any supervision beyond an officer she can call in emergencies, she goes on the hunt.

Every city has dark sides to it, no matter how well it polishes its surface, and Eva is familiar enough with dark places. She may not call upon Mother Vidnea as much as she did in her true youth, but the spider’s threads can still guide her to the nexuses of infernal and illicit activity where she can find the people she needs to search for her boys.

She doesn’t use her true name here, a dead woman should not reveal her pulse so carelessly after all. Instead, she uses an old joke. Madonna Luce - ‘The lady of the light calling monsters out of the darkness’, she always did enjoy Sparda's dramatic streak. The investigators she hires accept it readily enough. It’s hardly as though she’s the first client who’s reticent to reveal themself fully. Of course, her reluctance to share certain information doesn’t exactly speed their searches.

As much as she loathes the slow pace of relying on strangers relaying incomplete information to different strangers in other cities, she knows that the full truth will endanger the twins long before it helps them. Still, white hair and ancient blades can hardly be a common descriptor. Even if they dye their hair the roots will show. Even if they are not actively hunted, demons will still find themselves drawn to their blood and be struck down. There’s a reason Sparda taught the twins to fight despite their wish that they might have a peaceful childhood. She dreads the day they learn that their blood will let them wear another’s face.

Perhaps someday she will know one of her many eyes well enough to trust them with the truth unfiltered by fear.

It occurs to Eva eventually, that Fortuna still stands, and there is every chance that the boys may seek out their heritage. So she endeavors to extend her web to Fortuna's shores. Curiously though, the investigators won’t set foot on the island, nor speak much about it, not without asking for more than she can afford to give.

Centuries have passed since last she thought of that island. She remembers its founding, remembers watching Sparda hunched over strategy tables, slowly learning how to compress his flesh into a human’s stature, designing the defenses for this sanctuary he wanted to carve. A haven for the halfbloods trapped on the mortal plane yet still persecuted by the Christians who condemned the accident of their births. Haven for the witches, those who would stand with them, and those who deviated from society's path. Her hands still know well the protective matrices she wove into the fortress’ walls. She wonders if those same wards still stand. She tries not to remember the feeling of newer wards shattering around her as her home caught fire. She wonders how history has engraved the story of their efforts.

Her curiosity does not last long after arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short one I know, more of a scene than a chapter, but I wanted to get something up and I still need to polish the next bit some more.
> 
> Up next: actually visiting Fortuna  
> also: I have social media accounts: twitter and insta are both ALaughingCrow if anybody's interested. I post art, various thoughts I have, and of course: my cat. Her name is Zhalia and I love her.


	3. Old Shores, New Faces

The tourist’s quarters she rents in Fortuna are nice without being gaudy. The water is slow to warm from the tap, but the windows are wide and let the sunset bless her bedroom when the first night falls. In the morning she is greeted by a redhead barely into their teen years with keen eyes and a smile full of teeth that are just a little bit too sharp.

“Nice to meet you Madonna. My name’s Zelophehad.” They stick out their hand to shake hers, she obliges of course.

“Hello Zelophehad, please just call me Luce.” She smiles warmly and welcomes them in for, well coffee’s probably a poor idea at their age, but she’s sure she saw some hot chocolate mix in one of the cupboards.

“Hmmm, maybe when the Scudo aren’t listening. But only if you call me Zelo.”

“Of course, Zelo. Do you mind telling me a bit about how things are? It’s been quite some time since I was last in Fortuna.”

“Sure, but I doubt it’s changed that much. Not a whole lot happens around here.”

“Perhaps, but I find that a change of leadership can have quite the effect, even if it’s not obvious at first.”

“Change in lea-? We’ve had Vicar Sanctus for ages though.” Their gaze is surprisingly unconfused, merely calculating, searching her too-youthful face for discrepancies. It reminds her of Vergil when he encountered a new word in a poem.

“I’m sure you have.” She permits a sliver of power to flow, lighting the armour matrix adorning her clothes.

“They didn’t tell me I was guiding a Strega!”

“I didn’t tell them I was one, seemed like too much fuss.”

“Well, I won’t be able to take you into the tourist restricted zones, but at least I don’t have to remember what’s supposed to be censored.”

“That sounds fine to me.”

* * *

Zelophehad leads her around the city for hours, stopping briefly for lunch with a woman they called Nonna Tarma who gives them plates piled high with dumplings and sends them off with pouches stuffed full of candied citrus peels. Zelophehad finishes off their pouch swiftly, giving Eva a brilliant grin when she starts slipping them sweets from hers as they walk between their curated collection of cultural sites.

Eventually they lead her to the entrance of the grand cathedral, and despite all the changes she has witnessed around the city, this stands almost exactly as she remembers. Some of the windows have changed scene, the carpets are new, and the guards have updated their uniforms. But the coloured light glimmers on the stone tiles like an old friend, the snippets of Danethurian as the workers gossip amongst themselves echo lost voices across the halls, and the resonance of the old wards envelops her, welcoming her home.

Zelophehad walks with a spring in their step as the pass tapestries woven with vibrant histories; the building of the fortress, the repelling of Mundus’ forces, the first assembly of The Order of the Sword. Eva smiles at the representations, dramatized and glorified as they are, for that is the fate of history when enough generations have passed that it becomes legend. Her guide’s explanations of their contents are equally colourful, slipping into Danethurian when they pass too close to another visitor. One of the guards raises their brow at the switch, but he smiles fondly upon Eva when she curls a strand of energy around her fingertips in explanation.

Eva knew this building well once, and while she suspects she would likely get lost now if permitted to explore fully, she still remembers where this hallway leads. As the Archways get taller and more elaborate, she knows they approach the great hall. A towering room where Sparda once rallied his people both to war and to peace. Where she bound the keystone of the fortress’ wards. She shares a grin with Zelophehad as they lead her forwards.

“And this is the prayer hall, it’s one of the oldest parts of the cathedral. Signore Brusa tells me that the stained glass in the ceiling is still the original from the founding, but glass is pretty brittle so I’m not entirely sure how true that part is. Though most people find that less interesting than the centerpiece. The carving of our great savior Sparda was completed for the inauguration of Vicar Sanctus forty-three years ago based on portraits from Sparda’s time in Fortuna.”

That is not her husband’s face. It is entirely too human, absent of chitinous ridges, no sharpened teeth peak past the too thick shape of its lips. Its brow is strong but unarmored and blends smoothly into unridged horns that do not curve inwards but instead taper downwards in pathetically thin tips that would shatter upon contact with even a fresh spawned Beelzebub or Sargasso.

Her displeasure must show on her face, as quickly as she shutters it behind a genial smile it is still caught by Zelophehad’s hungry eyes.

“It’s a bit much I know, but as his Holiness says; ‘there is no tribute too grand for our saviour’.”

“No, the craft-work is fine, I simply thought it a bit odd to make Sparda such a grand fixture in a prayer hall of all places.” Yes, that’s a reasonable point, political leaders aren’t meant to be enshrined in holy sites.

Zelophehad gives her an odd look for the statement though, tilting their head in confusion.

“Madonna Luce, who did you think we were praying to?”

“What?”

She falters and has to brace herself against her cane. They’re doing what? Sparda was no god, nor did he ever claim to be. He was a man, a devil yes – and a strong one at that, but just one man. That is what she had respected about his rebellion. He was not some supreme being imposing his will upon the direction of history, simply one person who became aware of the tide of horrors he had been complicit in and chose to stand against it.

“What do you mean? You’re praying to Sparda?”

“I- well- we….” They pause, clearly not expecting to explain this to a witch. So, they don’t. They resume their tour guide monologue, perhaps a bit faster than before, with a touch of manic energy tinting their description of the Order’s services and traditions.

Quickly, she is drawn into a corridor that the rest of the visitors seem not to notice; and when she passes through the entrance, she feels the cool touch of an empathic matrix.

“So, when exactly was the last time you were in Fortuna?” Zelophehad demands, pupils bleeding milky white and teeth morphing into gnashing blades. “Because the whole worshipping the ‘great and glorious saviour’ schtick is not new.”

“The founding. I was here for the founding.” Worshipping Sparda, the concept is still surreal to her. They stare at her in awe and dawning understanding, the gears of their mind turning as they process her statement.

“You knew him!” A clawed fingertip springs towards her face in excitement.

“Yes. We- we met.” Probably better not to tell a child she married their god, even if they don’t appear particularly devout. “He was not a god; he wasn’t even a particularly high-ranking devil he was just a knight.”

“Huh, I guess he got a bit of an ego to him after you left.”

“No, he- we left at the same time. I was pursuing knowledge held in foreign covens, and he wanted to give Fortunans the right to lead themselves. I suppose he didn’t check back in on you all as often as he should have.”

“So, what? Our leadership just decided they’d force everybody to worshi- no that sounds right actually.”

“I’m deeply sorry to hear that. That’s not what this place was supposed to be.”

“Well, it is what it is, for now.” They give her a wink. “Don’t worry Luce, we aren’t all, what’s the foreign expression? ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’? There’re plans to get things back on track.”

“And you’re part of them?” Dear gods, to have their failures rectified up by children. She can think of few greater sins.

“Well, no. I’m ‘too young’, and they don’t want to ‘destroy my childhood before it’s over’, like that’s a thing I’ve ever had.” They huff with a jaded weight. “But they’ll let me in eventually. In the meantime, let’s get you back in the tourist zones! Can’t let the Scudo start wondering where we went right?”

Their diabolic features melt away with a smile and Zelophehad leads Eva by the hand back into the busy crowds of chattering visitors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everybody meet my OC Zelophehad, they aren't sticking around long, and I didn't even mean to include them originally but they're here now! (yes they/them pronouns because Non-Binary).


End file.
